Web Design Articles

Web design articles

Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7 marks the first major update to Internet Explorer in several years. Explorer 6 has been a bane to us as a web developer. We've been forced to compromise a standards compliant design in order to accommodate an aging browser. IE7 marks some considerable improvements

First off is tabbed browsing. Here, Explorer is playing catch up to Firefox which in turn borrowed from the underrated browser, Opera.

The new IE gets a big tick for the zoom feature which allows users to zoom in on web pages. This is along overdue feature, if you ignore the fact Opera has had that feature for a while.

IE has also enhanced security considerably. Like the new Firefox, it warns of cross browser scripts.

IE 7 has improved it's adherence to web standards. It does a better job than IE6 which plagued designers with a annoyances like the peekaboo bug. IE7 renders this site properly- just like Firefox. However it is not quite there. See how IE handles pure CSS drop down menus at http://meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/menus/demo.html IE6 changes the colour when you hover a mouse over it. IE7 shows the menus, but it's a mirage; you can never get to the menus that expand out. Load the
same page in Firefox and you'll see how a pure CSS menu should work.

IE7 requires you to reboot your computer unlike Firefox. That suggests to us that IE7 is tied into the operating system. You won't get IE7 on a Mac or Linux like Firefox or Opera. IE7 still has a way to go to meet web standards but we think it a considerable improvement and a worthwhile upgrade, but we'll still recommend Firefox or Opera over it.

Using CSS for Layout

why?

Don't tables do a good job of presenting layout? Yes they do but if you want to change a layout you have to change every file. We can change the layout on this site by changing only 1 file. Check the text size in the utility bar. You have the standard layout, a layour for larger print sizes ply a plain vanilla text only version. There is only one version of this file not three separate versions.

Firefox vs Explorer

We've been testing some of the new crop of web browsers lately. The results seem to be point one way... Firefox.

In case you haven't heard, Firefox is a stand alone web brower that is part of the Mozilla stable. It has a number of advantages over the dominant Internet Explorer:

Cross Platform: Firefox come in various flavours adapted for variou operating systems.
Small Download: The Windows version is about 4.7meg which is almost a 10th of the size of Internet Explorer 6. The Linux and OSX versions are larger, weighing in at 8.1meg and 8.6meg respectively
Speed: Firefox seems to load web pages faster than Explorer.
Tabbed Browsing: One of our favourite features is tabbed browsing. It's nice and easy having various windows all open in the same place. You can have multiple pages open without cluttering your desktop.
Popup Blocking: One of the most annoying features of surfing the web thes days would have to be popups. Explore can block popups with 3rd party software but Firefox has a popup blocking feature as a standard.
Security: Firefox doesn't run ActiveX commands so you are less likely to be plagued by spyware
User Selected Stylesheets: If a website has multiple style sheets, Firefox enables you to swap easily by clicking an icon in the bottom left.
Standards Support: Firefox fully supports all the latest web standard like XHTML, Cascading stylesheets etc. It's wont chuck a "hissy fi"t if it comes across an XML page.
Easy Switching: Firefox can easily import your favourites from Explorer.
Free: Yes, Firefox is free. It costs nothing and is based on open source.

At present, Explorer seems to be falling further behind. Explorer 6 is now around 2 years old which is a long time in internet years. Firefox offers some very stiff competition and some compelling reasons to switch.

Why Bother With Web Standards?

Standards make things standard. I know it's an obvious statement but it's meant to be. The reasons for having standards should be obvious too. The web used to be designed for Netscape or Internet Explorer. You either designed to get the best for one browser or you designed a compromise to suit both. The other way around it was do two designs and set a javascript routine to sniff the browser and direct the use to the appropriate files. This is extra work and what happens if you decide to incorporate another browser into your design? Another set of files?

Enough is is enough. The nature of the web is changing. More and more portable devices are connecting to the net. Handheld computers and 3G phones are but 2 examples. Standards based web pages should display
quite adequately on these devices. Moving to a standards based design helps to future-proof your web site. There is also the issue of accessibility to consider. A standards based web site can be rendered by a speech based browser. By not having your web site accessible, you are not only shutting out part of your audience, you could also be breaking the law in some legal jurisdictions. Moving to a standards based design also helps web designers. As part of the redesign of this site, we separated out he content from the layout. The html files
contain the test and graphics. The layout is handled by cascading style sheets. The beauty of this approach is that if I want to change the look of the site, all I need to do is change the style sheet and voila... a new look site.

Firefox 2

Firefox 2, the latest from Mozilla has been released. There is a lot happening in the arena of the "browser
wars".

On the surface, not much appears to have changed. Firefox 2 is
skinned slightly differently. The tabs have a glassy look about them.

What's new:

Session Restore: If you computer crashes, Firefox 2 will resume with same tabs opened up for you.

Spell check: If you are typing in a form, Firefox 2
will check your spelling as you go. There are a variety of dictionaries
available. The default is US English, but it is easy to install
Australian English, French, Hungarian or what ever you want.

Security: You get a warning if you get a site with cross domain scripting (a common tactic in phishing sites).

Live Titles: Live Titles are regularly updated
summaries of the most important information on a Web page. As the
information on the page gets updated, so does your Live Title.

These are just some of the features available. On the down side,
some of your Firefox 1 extensions might not work. According to the
reviews we've read, uninstalling Firefox 2 is not a clean process- it
leaves some files behind. It doesn't quite fully support all the
standards supported by the W3C organisation.

In our opinion, we think Firefox 2 is worth the upgrade.